Agia Theodora (St Theodora)

It was a lovely party. We left at 4 in the afternoon and it took two and a half hours to drive there, very windy roads into the mountains. All along the way you can see the damage from the forest fires last year – really devastating. Some of the villages on the main highway are nearly deserted and many homes have burned. Part of the road is national highway so it is well paved and marked and then we drove through three small villages, where only one car can get by – always amazes me how we manage. On the other side of the last village the road widens again and is paved and easy to drive. Finally we get to the site and park. We walked about 1,000 meters and they have booths selling icons, toys, and lots of food. It is in the woods and is really lovely. It is a very small church. Only about four people at a time can fit into it and there is a lovely river that runs behind and underneath it.

The priests started conducting the mass and everyone was outside. There was an icon store on site, so that’s where I bought two English-language books telling the legend (one for a friend in the US who is Greek American and named Theodora [we were at the St Theodora]).

After the mass, and the priest’s sermon (Michael says he was yelling about the crowd for only coming on these great feast days and not going to church every Sunday and not taking their children to church with them – sounded very familiar) we had this wonderful bread and then you were allowed to enter the church and take pictures.

I had to go to the bathroom and we kept seeing signs but no one really knew where they were located. We walked down this lovely path along the river and came out into a clearing with a beautiful restaurant. I asked and they said yes and were quite nice (the bathroom was nice too – Greek public bathrooms are notoriously horrid; no seats and you never put the toilet paper into the toilet – there is always a small can nearby, even in houses including ours).

When we got back we walked into the church and our friends took our picture (we forgot our camera). Outside the church is a small box with paper and pencil and you write your name on paper and put it into the box and you receive blessings from the saint. Our friend Chris was helping several gypsies (there were loads of gypsies there with the young girls on dressed up and some with make-up, which we never see here in town, but all were scrupulously clean, another thing we never see in town here) by writing their names on the paper. Unfortunately gypsies don’t send their children to school, except those who live near large cities like and the Greeks don’t like sending their kids to school with the gypsies – again it sounded too familiar.

Anyway, we left at 9 and were home by 11:30 pm. September 11 is the real Saint’s Day, but there were so many people on September 10 trying to miss the crush on the September 11, I just can’t imagine what it must be like with thousands of people there. It was doable with just hundreds and they have parking for tour buses (we saw one as we were heading out of the last village.

There are some great pictures of Agia Theodora at Outdoors.Webshots.

Palin Pick

Palin is many things. Smart is not one of them. I can't believe that smart people fall for this cynical crap.

Hillary Clinton lost the nomination for a number of reasons. Did you know that NONE of her staff had ever run a presidential campaign before? If this counts in Super Bowl competitions, why shouldn't it count in presidential campaigns? She blew off the caucus states, bad move since they get the largest percentage of delegates. And why, because the state parties want to reward their most loyal, active members. I don't like caucuses because they disenfranchise me because I'm usually not in the US on primary day and my voted ballot doesn't count. The Democratic Party, up til Obama's win in the primaries was the Clinton's Democratic Party. You would think they would know the rules. And did I mention that her great consultant, Mark Penn thought that Democrats were the same as Republicans -- winner take all elections? Give me a break.

Sarah Palin has abused her power in her home state - read the home state papers; they're all online. They have a different perspective of her than you're likely to get in the national media.

But for McCain to think that even rural, Southern women would vote for a woman with no experience to be the Vice President to a man who has overcome cancer four times and is 72 years old is beyond cynicism. Patronizing is what I'd call it.

Anything to Win

I keep reading and watching TV (okay, YouTube) about why Hillary Clinton would be the best Vice President pick for Obama.

If he did pick her, who would have rightly earned the Anything to Win title? I think it would be Obama in a landslide!

Obama and General Clark

When Senator Clinton talked about Senator Obama being ready to be President, I thought it was just talk. But the way he has handled himself these past several days, I'm starting to wonder.

Wesley Clark was right. Being a Prisoner of War has nothing to do with being President of the United States or perhaps some of the people currently in Guantanamo, when they are finally released, can return to their home countries and run for the highest office. They will certainly be able to call themselves former Prisoners of War and given the new McCain rule, they should certainly have the credentials.

I only know what I've read about Senator's McCain's war record. I have no knowledge or judgment about it one way or another; but I do believe that General Wesley Clark was absolutely right in his statements that Senator McCain has not been in a leadership position so far.

But for Obama to do whatever he is asked to do by the Republicans while dissing the people who are actually going to vote for him (let me count the ways: 1) FISA retroactive immunity, 2) the death penalty, 3) the right to bear arms, and now 4) disavowing a 4-star general in favor of Bush III) is moving him more and more to the "have to vote" rather than "want to vote" status.

Good grief! He's starting to make the people who think they should support McCain seem to be smarter than one would have thought even if just on the basis of the logic of voting against your own self-interest.

What's next? Will he start cutting campaign commercials for Senator McCain?

Zimbabwe

I've been doing stuff other than blogging lately, but this site, This is Zimbabwe, has forced me to look at what is happening there.

I remember in the 1960s being so proud of Robert Mugabe and the other African freedom fighters. They were sort of role models for me as I struggled to find my place in the American civil rights movement.

The pictures shown on the site make you wonder where we are going as human beings. To be able to treat other people in such a shameless and hateful manner seems unreal.

How can it get worse?

Hillary, Again

I've been listening to and reading the words of all these women who agree with Senator Clinton: Hillary or nothing. And it all sounded sort of familiar to me and I realized that many of these women were involved in the Women's Movement in the 1970s.

I remember going to lots of meetings and trying to get women involved in the issues that affected women in general and women of color in particular. But the upshot of the meetings was always that first we'd work on the issues that the white women felt were important and when those issues had been resolved, we'd move on to the issues that mattered to the other women.

The fact that all of this took place in Oakland, California and most of the women in the group were women of color probably explains a lot about why the group soon disbanded. My other vivid memory of those women was being given a hard time about being the mother of a son. As if women determine the gender of babies.

Oh well. So, what does this have to do with Hillary. Seems to be the same thing happening again. Listening to and reading the words of some of her most fevered supporters I keep reliving the 1970s. Hillary and only Hillary. Doesn't matter that she's lost, doesn't matter that her sense of entitlement didn't save her...she deserves this nomination and the rest of us be damned.

It is up to the Obama supporters to reach out to the Clinton supporters. Not the other way around. I just heard Obama talk about Senator Clinton in the most gracious manner and yet Allida Black, co-founder of WomenCountPac, just said on Warren Olney's To the Point that Senator Obama had to be more gracious about Senator Clinton and stated that Senator Obama has not been kind to Senator Clinton lately.

Listening to Ms. Black go on an on about "counting all the votes," I wondered where she was in 2004 when the election was being stolen by the Republicans. I was in Seattle on the steps of the Federal Building with one of my best buds (meow!) demonstrating against the tyranny. There weren't a lot of people with us and it was pretty lonely. But I'm sure Ms. Black was in the streets along with former President Clinton and soon to be Senator Clinton.

I think she's getting Obama supporters like Rev. Michael Pfleger confused with the Senator himself. I watched the YouTube of Rev. Pfleger's remarks and thought they were on target. I also read the AP article Obama Campaign Used Party Rules to Foil Clinton and it too is on target.

Makes me think of Oakland and 1972.

Hillary Clinton and RFK

It would be so easy to believe that Hillary simply mispoke. But she's been exhorting white working class voters (code for racist rednecks) to support her. And now, on the eve of the anniversary of the assignation of Robert Kennedy, she reminds us that RFK, like Obama, was on his way to winning the Democratic nomination when he was killed.

Good grief - what the hell was she thinking? I don't think she's putting a contract out on Obama, but I do think that she's gotten so far in to this denial that she will say anything, regardless of who it hurts, to further her cause.

Sorry and sorry it had to end this way. Will these comments also end her political career except for the US Senate? Only time will tell.